Democracy

The 1950s were marked by violence and intimidation aimed at silencing Black voters in Florida. The assassination of NAACP leaders Harry T. and Harriette Moore in 1951—outspoken advocates for voter registration—showed the deadly lengths to which white supremacists would go to suppress the Black vote.

Yet even in the face of such hate, Black leaders, clergy, and allies refused to be silenced. They dared to speak truth to power and expose the state’s deliberate efforts to shut Black voters out of democracy.

In 1959, while the U.S. Civil Rights Commission investigated voting rights abuses across the South, Rev. Ben Wyland, executive secretary of the Florida Council for Racial Cooperation, offered to present evidence of voter intimidation in four counties. His investigation revealed the extent of systemic disenfranchisement: in Gadsden County, where 10,930 Black residents were of voting age, only five were registered.

Wyland also shared testimony from Rev. Dee Hawkins of Liberty County, who had tried to register alongside three eligible Black voters. Though the registrar initially welcomed him, that night Hawkins was threatened.

“That night all hell broke loose… they are causing me to leave my home,” Hawkins wrote to Wyland.

Though then-Gov. LeRoy Collins dismissed these findings, the truth could not be ignored. We joined this resistance, challenging discriminatory barriers and shining a national spotlight on Florida’s attempts to disenfranchise Black voters.

Their courage helped fuel the momentum that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, affirming a simple but essential truth: democracy is only as strong as our commitment to protect every voice and every vote.

For decades, Florida politicians drew voting districts to serve themselves—protecting incumbents and silencing voters. In the three election cycles before 2010, only 3 out of 420 incumbents lost their seats. The system was rigged, and Floridians knew it.

That year, voters demanded change. With the ACLU of Florida and a broad coalition leading the charge, citizens rallied behind Amendments 5 and 6—the Fair Districts Amendments. For the first time, fairness was written into the state constitution, requiring maps that didn’t favor incumbents or political parties and strengthening protections for voting rights.

The campaign was massive and people-powered. Yet even after victory, state leaders fought back. Florida congressmen tried to strike down Amendment 6 in court, but failed.

In a 2012 opinion upholding the amendment, U.S. Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus wrote: “The lawmaking power in Florida expressly includes the power of the people to amend their constitution, and that is exactly what the people did here in passing Amendment 6.”

Meanwhile, then-Gov. Rick Scott sought to stall implementation and advanced voter suppression laws of his own. Once again, the ACLU and partners stepped in—holding the line through court battles to safeguard voting rights and access to the ballot box.

Despite repeated and current attempts to weaken them, the Fair Districts Amendments remain a landmark achievement. They stand as proof that when Floridians come together to demand fairness, we can reshape democracy itself—and protect the power of every vote.

For generations, Florida carried one of the harshest disenfranchisement laws in the nation—permanently stripping people with felony convictions of the right to vote, even long after they had served their sentences. The impact was staggering: more than 1.4 million Floridians were locked out of democracy, their voices silenced by a Jim Crow–era law designed to exclude Black voters and the poor.

By 2018, a years-long movement to end this injustice reached its peak. Led by returning citizens like Desmond Meade and the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, and strongly backed by the ACLU of Florida, a people-powered campaign put Amendment 4 on the ballot. Nearly 65% of Floridians—over 5 million voters—said yes, restoring voting rights to most returning citizens who had completed their sentences.

For people like Betty Riddle, who had long dreamed of casting a ballot again, the victory was deeply personal. “For the first time in years, I feel like I am part of society—not apart from it,” she said.

Thousands of Floridians echoed that same joy as they registered to vote—proof that redemption and second chances could be written into law.

But soon after, politicians tried to take back what the people had given. In 2019, lawmakers passed SB 7066, demanding that returning citizens pay off all fines and fees before regaining the right to vote. We called this effort for what it was: a modern-day poll tax. We went back to court, fighting to preserve the dignity and democracy Amendment 4 had promised.

Though courts allowed SB 7066 to stand, Amendment 4 remains one of the most significant expansions of democracy in modern Florida history. It proved that when people demand fairness, democracy grows stronger.